


Practice Problems

by badgerdactyl



Category: Puyo Puyo
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 00:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16608491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badgerdactyl/pseuds/badgerdactyl
Summary: It's a late night - there's a quiz tomorrow and Klug is burning the midnight oil.





	Practice Problems

Klug flipped to the back of his textbook to check his answer to find that he was wrong - wrong, wrong, wrong.

_ Well, of  _ course,  _ that’s not right. If you added that much wolf’s bane to  _ anything, _ you’d be liable to kill someone. Idiot. _

He clutched his eraser in his hand and quickly cleared his answer before scribbling in its replacement. After swiping at the page with his hand, he set the eraser down onto a clutter of classroom notes and turned his head to the window, his eyes heavy with a desperate drowsiness as the stars twinkled above him. Narrowing his eyes at the continued passage of time, he turned his focus back to his studies, his pencil joining in the candle’s flitting dance against a choir of chirping crickets.

It wasn’t supposed to be a  _ big _ test, really - just a quick quiz to check how everyone was taking in the content. Professor Accord even said that she would just put the score in the “homework” category or forgo the grade entirely if the scores weren’t great. Not that it mattered, though - he  _ was _ great. The greatest! The  _ absolute _ greatest. He had to be, after all. Klug flipped to the back of his textbook to check his answer to find that he was wrong - wrong, wrong, wrong.

_ Obviously coelacanth oil pairs with ginkgo biloba leaves - they’re both living fossils. Anyone with half a brain could have told you that, you  _ absolute  _ moron. _

His eyes burned like the corners of his mind as he snatched up the eraser and corrected himself again. He let out a yawn as he began the next problem, nearly burning a hole in the page with his laser-like focus before the words started to make sense again. He shook the cobwebs out of his mind and returned his pencil to his hand.

He  _ had _ to be the greatest. He was  _ Klug, _ for goodness sake! The longer he stared at the textbook the more convoluted and confusing the practice questions seemed to be. There  _ shouldn’t _ be a reason he wasn’t understanding everything. His head felt heavy as he wrote down his answer, the tip of his pencil snapping as he circled it. The other questions were just flukes, surely - minor slip-ups that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. He wouldn’t be caught  _ dead _ making mistakes like those in the classroom. Klug flipped to the back of his textbook to check his answer to find that he was wrong - wrong, wrong, wrong. 

_ Feverfew doesn’t  _ actually  _ treat fevers, stupid - it’s a misnomer. How could you fall for something like that? Everyone knows it’s for headaches like  _ you.

His head - yelled, screamed, fussed - ached as he once again made a grab for the eraser, watching idly as his hands, seemingly of their own accord, began to erase his mistake and replace it with the proper answer. The eraser fell from his left palm, his pencil from his right, and he stared aimlessly forward towards the wall for a moment, unable to convince his hands to return to their task. With a great deal of reluctance and pleading, they picked themselves up from the desk and the pencil began to dance again, its quick swing tempo replaced with the offspring of a waltz and a crawl as he slogged through the remaining problems.

His eyes glazed over the formulas for balancing different herbal potions and his mind became a sea of rolling fog as he felt lost, lost, lost inside himself. Utterly detached from his body, his mind began to work itself into a panic - if he  _ wasn’t _ the best… If he wasn’t the smartest, the greatest, the overachiever, the wonder child, the absolute genius everyone thought he was, then what  _ was _ he? Klug flipped to the back of his textbook to check his answer to find that he was wrong - wrong, wrong, wr-

_ … Oh. _

Klug pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, clearing his throat before turning to the next page in his textbook. He rolled his shoulders once, twice, before beginning the next problem as the stars continued to shine, the candle continued to burn and the crickets continued to sing.

 

Professor Accord smiled a sunny smile as she handed Klug his quiz - spelled paper made for easy grading, after all. Klug accepted it with a plastered smile of his own before flipping it over in a flurry, his eyes immediately darting down to the red written number at the top -  _ 100%. _ He stared at it for a moment as he waited for something -  _ anything _ to happen. His heart refused to stir as his face continued to force a smile. The back of his mind began to whisper,  _ Well, what did you expect, really? Anything less than your best - anything less than  _ perfection  _ isn’t allowed here. _

He jumped out of his skin as an arm swung around his shoulder, the corner of his eye assaulted by a mess of blonde hair and a red cap. “Klug, Klug!” Amitie called in his ear, pulling him down with a smile and looking over his shoulder. “That sure was a toughie, don’tcha think? How did you do? How did you do?” He stammered, shook out of his stupor and standing struck speechlessly still. Amitie answered her own question as she plucked the paper from his hands and spun on her heels, holding it high above her head. “Get really real - you got a perfect score! That’s  _ wonderful! _ How did you even  _ do _ that?”

“You’re asking the wrong question,” Raffina said, eyes narrowed, her quiz crumpled tightly in her fist as she marched up to Klug. “The better question is ‘why is the first we’re hearing about it?’ I mean,  _ honestly,  _ Klug.” She ducked down to put her face in his. “It’s been, what, 2 minutes? And I haven’t heard a sound from you yet?”

Klug closed his eyes and pushed his glasses up before walking past Raffina and up to Amitie. He snatched back his test and let out a laugh like the bough of a dead tree - hearty in appearance but liable to snap at the slightest pressure. “Well, I  _ knew _ I’d pass, after all. Who did you think you were talking to?” He turned on his heels to face Raffina, his face contorted into a smirk as he planted his hands on his hips, “Judging from your expression and,” he snickered, pointing a dainty finger at her crumpled paper, “ _that _ whole mess, I’d say you didn't fair nearly as well as I did.” He turned his head up with another laugh as she glowered. “Amitie,” he said, turning his head towards her, “I’d love to stay and chat -  _ really, _ I would - but I think I’m losing brain cells just standing around this musclebound underachiever. I’ll just be taking my leave, then.”

Amitie stood slack-jawed as Klug walked away with another laugh. She turned to Raffina, hesitant to speak as she watched her tighten his fist. Raffina let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I suppose that’s more like it,” she said softly, watching as he walked out of the classroom and immediately slumped his shoulders and slowed his stride. “That’s our Klug…”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you thought~ <3


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